Computer simulations conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help scientists make sense of a recently observed and puzzling wrinkle in one of nature's most important chemical processes. It turns out that calcium carbonate—the ubiquitous compound that is a major component of seashells, limestone, concrete, antacids and myriad other naturally and industrially produced substances—may momentarily exist in liquid form as it crystallizes from solution. Calcium carbonate is a huge player in the planet's carbon cycle, ...

A view of the Pacific Ocean from NOAA's GOES-West satellite caught Tropical Storm Pewa moving through the Northwestern part of the ocean and two developing low pressure areas, one designated System 94E, several hundred miles off the Mexican coast. NOAA's GOES-West satellite infrared imagery from today, Aug. 22 at 1200 UTC/8 a.m. EDT showed Tropical Storm Pewa heading west in the Northwestern Pacific. Pewa had a rounded circulation. The other two developing lows did not appear circular in the GOES-West image. The GOES image was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Trami during the time it was making landfall in eastern China and captured an infrared view of the storm. Typhoon Trami made landfall late on Aug. 21, and the storm was captured in infrared light by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder/AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The AIRS image, taken on Aug. 21 at 17:59 UTC/1:59 p.m. EDT showed that the most powerful thunderstorms were tightly wrapped around the storm's center during landfall. AIRS data also showed bands of powerful thunderstorms feeding into the center ...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite detected hundreds of fires burning in central Africa on August 21, 2013. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires burn in grass or cropland which is obscured by the smoke in this image. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke ...

A new study confirms that exposure to low to moderate amounts of arsenic in drinking water can impair lung function. Doses of about 120 parts per billion of arsenic in well water—about 12 times the dose generally considered safe—produced lung damage comparable to decades of smoking tobacco. Smoking, especially by males, made arsenic-related damage even worse. This is the first population-based study to clearly demonstrate significant impairment of lung function, in some cases extensive lung damage, associated with low to moderate arsenic exposure. "Restrictive lung ...

A UCLA School of Nursing study has found that both healthy-weight and obese children who participated in an intensive lifestyle modification program significantly improved their metabolic and cardiovascular health despite little weight loss. "These findings suggest that short-term lifestyle modifications through changing diet and exercise can have an immediate impact on improving risk factors such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes," said Christian Roberts, an associate research professor at the UCLA School of Nursing and the study's lead author. "This work underscores ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Over the last few years, the use of nanomaterials for water treatment, food packaging, pesticides, cosmetics and other industries has increased. For example, farmers have used silver nanoparticles as a pesticide because of their capability to suppress the growth of harmful organisms. However, a growing concern is that these particles could pose a potential health risk to humans and the environment. In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a reliable method for detecting silver nanoparticles in fresh produce and other food ...

In a scientific first, Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists have successfully grown the cells that line the blood vessels—called vascular endothelial cells—from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), revealing new details about how these cells function. Using a unique approach, the researchers induced the differentiation of specific cell types by generating mechanical forces on the surface of the iPSC-derived endothelium mimicking the flow of blood. For example, cells that felt a stronger "flow" became artery cells, while those that felt a weaker "flow" became ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In an unexpected finding, scientists have linked the activation of a stress gene in immune-system cells to the spread of breast cancer to other parts of the body. Researchers say the study suggests this gene, called ATF3, may be the crucial link between stress and cancer, including the major cause of cancer death – its spread, or metastasis. Previous public health studies have shown that stress is a risk factor for cancer. Researchers already know that ATF3 is activated, or expressed, in response to stressful conditions in all types of cells. Under ...

Researchers at Princeton University are developing ways to use mobile phones to explore how one's environment influences one's sense of well-being. In a study involving volunteers who agreed to provide information about their feelings and locations, the researchers found that cell phones can efficiently capture information that is otherwise difficult to record, given today's on-the-go lifestyle. This is important, according to the researchers, because feelings recorded "in the moment" are likely to be more accurate than feelings jotted down after the fact. To conduct ...

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. – August 22, 2013 – Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) has emerged as a highly effective treatment for recurrent Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection, with very early experience suggesting that it may also play a role in treating other gastrointestinal (GI) and non-GI diseases. The topic is examined in the Review Article, "An overview of fecal microbiota transplantation: techniques, indications, and outcomes" in the August issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for ...

New research led by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine could aid efforts to diagnose and treat one of the most lethal and hard-to-treat types of cancer. In the EMBO Molecular Medicine journal, the investigators report that they have identified a new molecular mechanism that contributes to the spread of malignant tumors in the pancreas. The hope is that drugs could one day be developed to block this pathway. Most people with pancreatic cancer die within one to two years of diagnosis and it ...

TORONTO, Aug. 22, 2013—The ability to draw spontaneously as well as from memory may be preserved in the brains of artists long after the deleterious effects of vascular dementia have diminished their capacity to complete simple, everyday tasks, according to a new study by physicians at St. Michael's Hospital. The finding, scheduled to be released today in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, looked at the last few years of the late Mary Hecht, an internationally renowned sculptor, who was able to draw spur-of-the moment and detailed sketches of faces and figures, ...

A new study at Moffitt Cancer Center could offer hope to people with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Researchers are investigating whether an injectable known as PV-10 can shrink tumors and reduce the spread of cancer. PV-10 is a solution developed from Rose Bengal, a water-soluble dye commonly used to stain damaged cells in the eye. Early clinical trials show PV-10 can boost immune response in melanoma tumors, as well as the blood stream. "Various injection therapies for melanoma have been examined over the past 40 years, but few have shown the promising ...

AURORA, Colo. (August 22, 2013) - New research indicates that teens with anorexia nervosa have bigger brains than teens that do not have the eating disorder. That is according to a study by researchers at the University of Colorado's School of Medicine that examined a group of adolescents with anorexia nervosa and a group without. They found that girls with anorexia nervosa had a larger insula, a part of the brain that is active when we taste food, and a larger orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that tells a person when to stop eating. Guido Frank, MD, assistant ...

As everyone knows, medications are expensive, and even with insurance coverage, patients' out-of-pocket drug costs can be quite hefty. This holds true for individuals with Medicare Part D, also known as the prescription drug benefit, which subsidizes the cost of medications for about 28 million Medicare beneficiaries. About one-fifth of these Part D beneficiaries have out-of-pocket costs that top $100 a month. As a result, some 10 percent are forced to use less medication than prescribed due to financial hardship. And while the program's low-income subsidy can help ...

VIDEO: This is a 3D image of a heart muscle cell that has been derived from a fibroblast via a process called direct reprogramming. Direct reprogramming allows one cell type to... Click here for more information. SAN FRANCISCO, CA—August 22, 2013—In the aftermath of a heart attack, cells within the region most affected shut down. They stop beating. And they become entombed in scar tissue. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have demonstrated that this damage ...

Females can mount more powerful immune responses than males, but the flip side of this enhanced protection against infections is a greater risk for autoimmune disorders. Shedding light on the underlying causes of the gender bias in autoimmune diseases, a study published by Cell Press August 22nd in the journal Immunity reveals that certain gut microbes prevalent in males can help protect them against type 1 diabetes. The study demonstrates that these microbes cooperate with sex hormones to cause this gender bias and provides an important framework that could lead to better ...

When a member of the wolf pack leaves the group, the howling by those left behind isn't a reflection of stress but of the quality of their relationships. So say researchers based on a study of nine wolves from two packs living at Austria's Wolf Science Center that appears in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on August 22. The findings shed important light on the degree to which animal vocal production can be considered as voluntary, the researchers say. "Our results suggest the social relationship can explain more of the variation we see in howling behavior ...

Researchers have developed a new technique that might one day be used to convert cells from heart disease patients into heart muscle cells that could act as a personalized treatment for their condition. The research is published online on August 22 in the journal of the International Society of Stem Cell Research, Stem Cell Reports, published by Cell Press. The investigators previously reported the ability to convert scar-forming cells in the heart (called fibroblasts) into new, beating muscle in mice that had experienced heart attacks, thereby regenerating a heart from ...

BOSTON -- A person's skin pigment, which determines hair color and skin tone, is influenced by the melanocortin-1 (MC1R) gene receptor. For the population's one to two percent of redheads, a mutation in MC1R accounts for their red hair color and typical light skin. Now researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have discovered that the same MC1R mutation responsible for the red hair phenotype also promotes an important cancer-causing pathway. The new findings, reported on-line today in the journal Molecular ...

Perhaps one of the most defining features of humanity is our capacity for empathy – the ability to put ourselves in others' shoes. A new University of Virginia study strongly suggests that we are hardwired to empathize because we closely associate people who are close to us – friends, spouses, lovers – with our very selves. "With familiarity, other people become part of ourselves," said James Coan, a psychology professor in U.Va.'s College of Arts & Sciences who used functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans to find that people closely correlate people to whom ...

Mountain View, Calif. –August 22nd, 2013 23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, has conducted the first genetic study of striae distensae (stretch marks). Researchers at the company identified four genetic markers significantly associated with the development of stretch marks that inform why some individuals are more susceptible to the skin condition. Estimates of the prevalence of stretch marks range from 50-80 percent, however the exact causes of stretch marks are still widely unknown. Many factors, including excessive skin distension (during pregnancy, ...

Cattle contribute to global warming by burping and farting large amounts of greenhouse gases. Some of the same gases are also emitted from cow pats on pastures. But now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in cow pats may reduce emissions of the key greenhouse gas - methane. Agriculture is one of the biggest sources of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Among these, cattle farming for meat and milk are major sources of methane, a gas with a potent warming effect. Much of this methane comes from the ...

In a paper published by the journal Biodiversity Conservation, the researchers also suggest that anthropomorphism is overlooked as a powerful tool for promoting low-profile species that are either endangered or require urgent attention. At present, anthropomorphism in conservation is limited to social, intelligent animals, such as chimpanzees, polar bears and dolphins. According to the research, this would imply that other species are not worthy of conservation because they are not like humans in the 'right' ways. However, by making conservationists more aware of how ...